DEKALB, Ill.—Kirk Herbstreit “loves” the MAC. We know this because he said as much during ESPN’s BCS selection show, in between his own references to Northern Illinois’ Orange Bowl berth as both a “sad state for college football” and an “absolute joke.”

Gee, thanks, Herbie!

The Orange Bowl gives Northern Illinois a chance to prove doubters the team belongs in a BCS game with Florida State. (AP Photo)

It’s not hard to figure out what’s motivating the Huskies these days. Ever since their surprise jump to 15th in the BCS standings locked them into a Jan. 1 date with heavily favored Florida State, they’ve been doubted and insulted, dissed and dismissed. Given their opportunity to score the biggest win in the history of their program—and their conference—the Huskies are every bit as bound and determined as Notre Dame or Alabama to end the season with a bang.

“Obviously, we’re coming from the MAC so we expect most people to doubt us,” senior defensive end Sean Progar said on NIU’s campus a week before Christmas. “I’m sure they don’t feel we belong.”

The oddsmakers certainly don’t: NIU is a two-touchdown underdog vs. the 11-2 champions of the ACC.

And, let’s face it, Herbstreit has millions of college football fans behind him who’d prefer to see, say, Oklahoma take on the Seminoles. Not because they love the Sooners but because they love a good game between worthy opponents.

NIU is 12-1, but, without question, it’s a soft 12-1. The team’s signature nonconference win came vs. Kansas. And, of course, there was that one defeat, which still dogs the Huskies nearly four months later. As star quarterback Jordan Lynch, brand-new head coach Rod Carey and the rest of the Huskies boarded the plane to South Florida the day after Christmas, they knew that Sept. 1 still sticks out on their schedule like a sore thumb.

Or worse—as Herbstreit might put it, like a bad joke.

The Huskies entered their season opener vs. Iowa as a 10-point underdog and ended up losing just 18-17, but that result at Chicago’s Soldier Field looks pretty terrible right now. Iowa was one of the Big Ten’s worst teams in 2012. How does a non-BCS team that lost to the Hawkeyes warrant inclusion in one of the postseason’s five biggest games?

It won’t mean much to NIU’s harshest critics, but consider: It was Lynch’s first game as starter. He was playing behind a young, untested offensive line. The Huskies blew an eight-point fourth-quarter lead. They’ve won 12 in a row since. They are, as Progar puts it, a “ridiculously better” team now.

And they were better than Iowa, they all believe. (Much as FSU, some of them point out, was better than N.C. State, which nevertheless beat the Seminoles.)

“We had them,” Lynch said, “and we just let it slip.”

According to Carey, who was promoted to head coach after Dave Doeren took the job at (ironically enough) N.C. State, the immediate aftermath of the loss to Iowa was the single biggest key to NIU’s season.

“You should’ve been in that locker room, because I’ve never been part of anything like that,” the 41-year-old Carey told Sporting News. “They weren’t anxious, like, ‘It’s the first game of the year and we just need to get back home and regroup.’ No, they were mad—they were extremely mad—because they knew they were better than that score. And they have not forgotten that feeling.”

Doeren challenged them to pore over the game film and relive every mistake—repeatedly—and then to use it as fuel for the rest of the season.

That’s what they’ve done. And then Herbstreit came along and added some fresh barrels to the fire.

So, yeah, NIU’s motivation level for the Orange Bowl is pretty much off the charts. And motivation could be the key to the game, because—really, now—how much does this matchup mean to Florida State? What’s in it for the Seminoles? If they cream the Huskies, no one will be impressed. And if they lose … well, the possibility of that probably hasn’t even occurred to them.

“We’re not going into the game doubting ourselves,” Progar said, “but Florida State might be doubting us.”

Meanwhile, the Huskies burn to prove themselves.

Lynch has rushed for 1,771 yards—most ever by an FBS quarterback—and 19 touchdowns this season, and has thrown for another 2,962 yards and 24 scores. The 6-0, 216-pound junior became only the second FBS member of the 2,500 (yards passing)-1,500 (yards rushing) club. (Michigan’s Denard Robinson was the first to do it, in 2010.) And yet Lynch finished seventh in Heisman Trophy voting.

“I wanted to go down there to New York,” Lynch said, “and I actually wanted to win it.”

As Carey points out, this is the most important game to date for every NIU player with NFL aspirations.

It’s also huge for Carey and his staff—especially those who weren’t lured away by Doeren. (All four NIU staffers hired by Doeren at N.C. State will coach in the Orange Bowl.)

Carey hasn’t been sleeping much of late. He’s about to stand on the sideline and call offensive plays for the first time since he was a coordinator at UW-Stout in 2006. His first game as a head coach will merely be the toughest, highest-profile test in program history. How stressed out is he?

“Very,” he said in a team meeting room last week, adding a chuckle and a head-shake for emphasis. “I have to laugh when I think about the timing of it. It’s just funny, isn’t it?

“But this is a good stress. This is a fun stress. I want to present NIU in the best light possible, this program in the best light possible, and obviously myself and this football team. We have a chance to put this place on the map, and that’s huge to me.”

All the Huskies believe in that chance. To them—no matter how many folks disagree—they belong on this stage, and that’s no joke.